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The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

nytimes.com

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Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#31

Post by zachalexander »

Omniusaspirer wrote: post #27
jasonkester wrote: post #25

It seems a lot more possible these days, both socially and economically, to go into "partial retirement" at around age 30. Developers can pull this off without much effort. 2-20X the pay for our work, little expectation of company loyalty nor stigma for resume gaps or job hopping, crazy skewed market to ensure that a new contract is only a Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter update away. Why would anybody spend their 30s not t…

There's a subreddit dedicated to this idea, although I warn you it's largely terrible. http://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence Basically the only reason most people struggle financially in the US is due to their own financial illiteracy and living above their means. If you manage not to fall victim to either of those then you can save a substantial portion of your income towards a very early retirement should y…

What is terrible about the subreddit? Your following paragraph ("Basically...") sounds very reasonable.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#32

Post by jkyle »

mahouse wrote: post #21
Retric wrote: post #2

What about prison? It's ~1% of the adult populaion.

~1% of the adult population? Whoa.

As others noted, they're excluded from the study.

But if you're shocked at 1%, 2.9% are in jail or on probation or parole. They are mostly non-violent offenders. Laws are unequally applied toward African Americans at a ratio of about 10 to 1 (when accounting for incidences of the illegal behavior in each population) with African Americans receiving 60% longer sentences than whites for the same crime.

Prisoners are then put to work in industrial manufacturing for as little as 18c/hr and as much (ha) as $1.50/hr. The prison manufactures are guaranteed to win any government bid, regardless of whether their bid is higher than competitors.

Sorry for the tangent, pet peeve.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#33

Post by jkyle »

M8 wrote: post #12

Partially related to having a family becoming more risky for men. If you are not protected in case of a separation, you are less likely to want to commit to a family. If there is no family, there is less motivation to earn more.

I think unicorns are also playing a role. Unicorns are monopolizing rainbows and without rainbows men cannot find the will to work.

Both of our comments are completely random, uncited, and not even mentioned in the article.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#34

Post by natrius »

logicallee wrote: post #26

anyone else spot the patriarchy hiding in the blank line between the first and second paragraph? (and through the rest of the article.) i.e. when the author goes from talking about people to talking about men? like, shouldn't there be some transition, explanation, or...something? The first paragraph made perfect sense on it's own, and then it's off to talk to about men. Anyway, seriously... "why male models" (why men…

Men are used in these statistics because the labor participation of women in the workforce varies over time due to varying birth rates and cultural change. If you're trying to look at economic trends, it's easier if you start by ignoring women.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#35

Post by learnstats2 »

Omniusaspirer wrote: post #27
jasonkester wrote: post #25

It seems a lot more possible these days, both socially and economically, to go into "partial retirement" at around age 30. Developers can pull this off without much effort. 2-20X the pay for our work, little expectation of company loyalty nor stigma for resume gaps or job hopping, crazy skewed market to ensure that a new contract is only a Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter update away. Why would anybody spend their 30s not t…

There's a subreddit dedicated to this idea, although I warn you it's largely terrible. http://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence Basically the only reason most people struggle financially in the US is due to their own financial illiteracy and living above their means. If you manage not to fall victim to either of those then you can save a substantial portion of your income towards a very early retirement should y…

People on or below median income (i.e. "most people") live above their means, because they have little choice.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#36

Post by ctdonath »

zachalexander wrote: post #31
Omniusaspirer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a subreddit dedicated to this idea, although I warn you it's largely terrible. http://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence Basically the only reason most people struggle financially in the US is due to their own financial illiteracy and living above their means. If you manage not to fall victim to either of those then you can save a substantial portion of your income towards a very early retirement should y…

What is terrible about the subreddit? Your following paragraph ("Basically...") sounds very reasonable.

Some ideas are sensible, but a particular discussion thereof may not be.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#37

Post by notacoward »

jxf wrote: post #22
notacoward wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would indeed be interesting to see the corresponding charts for female employment, and whether there are any correlations between the two. I'll bet there are, and further that any discussion of their possible significance would make someone deeply uncomfortable.

Why do you think that the presence of a correlation would be uncomfortable?

Because it's very hard to say anything about the relationship between male and female employment without inciting controversy. Whenever there are more women in the workforce, there are complaints about women pushing men into more dangerous occupations (reflected in disability figures) or out of the workforce altogether (possibly reflected in family/education figures). Whenever there are fewer women in the workforce, there are complaints about men being forced to work longer (retirement figures) and also about women being discouraged from working due to lingering sexism in the workplace. In every case, some opposite constituency shows up with a diametrically and adamantly opposed POV. I'm not saying who's right or who's wrong, but it's almost impossible to talk about these things without rancor any more.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#38

Post by adamjernst »

logicallee wrote: post #26

anyone else spot the patriarchy hiding in the blank line between the first and second paragraph? (and through the rest of the article.) i.e. when the author goes from talking about people to talking about men? like, shouldn't there be some transition, explanation, or...something? The first paragraph made perfect sense on it's own, and then it's off to talk to about men. Anyway, seriously... "why male models" (why men…

Because it's part of a series: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/upshot/our-series-on-the-d...

With an entirely separate article on women: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/upshot/us-employment-women...

Don't assume the worst!

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#39

Post by kuyfiuyg »

logicallee wrote: post #26

anyone else spot the patriarchy hiding in the blank line between the first and second paragraph? (and through the rest of the article.) i.e. when the author goes from talking about people to talking about men? like, shouldn't there be some transition, explanation, or...something? The first paragraph made perfect sense on it's own, and then it's off to talk to about men. Anyway, seriously... "why male models" (why men…

Well, it is an article about a specific subset of the population, namely men...

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work, and What They Do Instead

#40

Post by Karunamon »

jkyle wrote: post #32
mahouse wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~1% of the adult population? Whoa.

As others noted, they're excluded from the study. But if you're shocked at 1%, 2.9% are in jail or on probation or parole. They are mostly non-violent offenders. Laws are unequally applied toward African Americans at a ratio of about 10 to 1 (when accounting for incidences of the illegal behavior in each population) with African Americans receiving 60% longer sentences than whites for the same crime. Prisoners are th…

Curious question - if hauling someone through the justice system is how we determine whether illegal behavior actually happened or not, then how does one separate the metrics "laws being unequally applied" vs "incidences of illegal behavior"?
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